The rise and development of LED plant factories

As a rising star in facility agriculture, the development of plant factories has roughly gone through three stages:

The early stage of experimental exploration was from the 1940s to the early 1970s. At that time, breakthroughs in "liquid cultivation technology" and "artificial simulation and environmental control technology" laid the technical foundation for the emergence of plant factories.

In 1957, the world's first plant factory was completed on the Jocrisdon Farm in Denmark. As early as at this time, this 1,000 square meters plant factory realized a fully automatic conveyor belt flow from sowing to harvesting. However, the scale of construction of plant factories during this period was still relatively small, and the scope should be limited to laboratories and demonstration farms, with high energy consumption and high operating costs.

From the 1970s to the end of the 1990s, the plant factory entered the stage of demonstration and application. The breakthrough of hydroponics and artificial light source technology has become a significant sign of this period. At this stage, fluorescent lamps gradually replaced high-pressure sodium lamps, red LEDs began to be put into use, artificial light sources continued to improve, and the energy consumption of light sources was reduced. In addition, sensors and automatic control technology are gradually introduced, and the demonstration application of plant factories is also expanding.

During this period, the United States General Foods, Senara Rumulus and Statham, as well as Philips in the Netherlands, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and many other companies began to develop plant factories.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, plant factories have entered a stage of rapid development. In addition to red LEDs, blue LEDs and red-blue LED combined light sources have been successfully developed, and network intelligent control technology has also been applied. Since then, the energy consumption of light sources in plant factories has been further reduced, and intelligent control has become possible.

So far, plant factories are still the focus of attention of people inside and outside the agricultural industry, and the emergence of plant factories is by no means accidental. From the problems that plant factories can solve, we can infer the reasons for their widespread concern.

First of all, the plant factory does not need to occupy a large area of?land, and is not restricted by environmental conditions, and can realize full-cycle, large-scale production in urban parking lots, indoors and other places. This means that there is a clear understanding of the contradiction between rapid population growth, shortage of land resources and declining arable land.

Secondly, in plant factories, no heavy metals will enter the production system. There are no diseases and pests under strict control conditions, no pesticides are needed, and food can be eaten directly. This is conducive to solving problems such as the abuse of pesticides and fertilizers and environmental pollution, and meets people's needs for food safety, health, and green.

Finally, as an important part of the development of agricultural science and technology, plant factories are an important manifestation of modern agriculture. Their working methods are completely different from traditional agriculture. Intelligent operation methods can not only attract young people to enter the agricultural industry, but also alleviate the aging of the agricultural population. The problem.

The importance of plant factories to the future of agriculture has made the domestic government pay more attention to it. In 2013, the national "Twelfth Five-Year" 862 plan project "Intelligent Plant Factory Production Technology Research" was launched in the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which means that the national level recognized the plant factory research and industrialization prospects .

In 2016, the results of the "Smart LED Plant Factory" independently developed by the "Facility Plant Environment Appearance Engineering Team" of the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences appeared in the National "Twelfth Five-Year" Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Exhibition, and were praised by national leaders. highly anticipated. In the same year, the Agricultural Lighting Expert Committee of the China Illuminating Society was established and became a national organization platform for the promotion of plant factories led by LED plant factory lighting. In the following year, lecture tours and exchange activities sponsored by the National Smart Plant Factory Innovation Alliance and the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences were launched nationwide.

Therefore, although the development of my country's plant factories began in the later stage of the demonstration and application stage of plant factories, and compared with developed countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan, the development of my country's plant factories is relatively fast.